Hello there fellow NZV8ers,

I trust you all had an awesome Christmas and by the time I post this, a safe and silly New Year.

I myself sadly did not get my ’32 roadster for Christmas, I don’t think Santa got my letter … Instead I have been busy with work and general procrastination type activities. But! I do have a nice surprise for you all (well, I was pretty proud of this…) I know in my last blog, I posted that I would have part one of project Funny Car up, and yes I have composed my first part, but due to that awesome procrastination, my drawing was put on hold (Sorry Morice!!) thus another project took hold of me that I had started earlier in the year, and only realized by the end of November that I had to get it done in time for Christmas.

As we all know here, or even if you are unaware, my favorite medium to draw with it pencils, pens and coloured pencils! But for a certain special family member, I decided to have a go at something I had been pondering about for a while… PAINT. Oh that’s right ladies and gentlemen; I was determined to conquer the one medium I had struggled with for years!

In all truth I started painting this around July/August but again that incredibly helpful procrastination had reared its ugly head and I think the painting moved at least a good handful of times around my room, to the point that it probably could’ve taken out Bathurst at the rate it was moving…

So the story behind this beauty is that it is a 1939 Chevy Coupe, built and owned by my Uncle Des Sheldon. It was something a little different and special, and in the “Good ‘ol days of hot rodding, when it didn’t cost you a million bucks!” as Dad nicely quoted. I decided to do the Coupe as it was something a little different and out of my square of doing cartoons etc. This was to be as close to realistic as I will probably get! Now I usually use a photo of some sort as a reference for shapes, details etc, BUT my problem was there were not many photos available of this car, and the only one we could source was a framed photograph Uncle Des had in his office at home. So, while staying with him, I managed to sneak into his office and take a photo (of a photo yes…) and happily went home with the plan in my head.

Skip several uneventful months later and I was down to December 24th, in a complete panic to get the painting just right after weeks and several layers of paint, trying to get my shading and details as close to correct as I could. Thankfully in the nick of time I had it done and it was wrapped before the paint was even dry!

And so rolled on Christmas day, when Uncle Des finally opened his gift, me being me I had hidden it under a Holden Fender cover I had brought from work for him as well. His face was priceless seeing the painting, his first words were “Where did you get a photo for this!?” Sneaky…Sneaky Olivia! He said he’s going to get it framed, so I would have to say that by far this is the biggest accomplishment for me, I’m so happy on how it turned out, though I think my paintings will be one-offs.

As for me, I’m now back to my coloring pencils and compiling my list for this year’s blogs, and first on my list is Morice, before I get my head chopped off! So, watch this space and see if you or anyone you know is going to be featured here next!

Happy 2011 fellow NZV8ers!